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Federal officials are trying to push the state to reduce spending on hospitalizing patients with serious mental illness while increasing support for community-based mental health programs.
(Associated Press photo/Paul Carter/The Register-Guard)

The U.S. Department of Justice and Oregon's U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall described the state's data as unreliable.

Multnomah County mental health service officials would agree.

County leaders said the state's data, as cited in the federal report, paint an inaccurate picture of the mental health services available in the metropolitan Portland area.

The Justice Department's "Interim Report to the State of Oregon,'' relying on state data, showed that Multnomah County has one or two Assertive Community Treatment teams - groups of psychiatrists, nurses and case managers who work together to provide individualized care to people with serious and persistent mental illness.

State data showed that the county's two teams served only 25 of roughly 13,175 estimated adults who suffer with serious mental illness, the federal report said.

According to the county figures, in fiscal year 2012-2013, there were 170 slots for people to be treated through Multnomah Counth's two Assertive Community Treatment teams. That capacity is expanding to 195 slots, said David Austin, county spokesman.

County officials did not say how many of the slots were filled by people who received the treatment.

Yet they said the county treated 3,544 people who suffered from serious mental illness during the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The difference between the state's figures and the county's own figures is not surprising to federal justice investigators, who found the state's computer database incompatible with the county's database.